


left the bones behind

by kay_cricketed



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:44:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_cricketed/pseuds/kay_cricketed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Five Armies, Bilbo begins to realize the futility of his situation. His love of the king is more wound than armor, and while Thorin recognizes his need to return to the Shire, the parting may well ruin them both. If the Company has any say in the matter, it won't come to that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. what remains to be buried

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to the smuttier [bring your battle to my door](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651071). However, it's not entirely necessary to read for this fic. You just have to know that everyone survived the Battle of Five Armies (though most everything else happened that does in the book) and that Thorin and Bilbo have unresolved issues about how they can manage a relationship when their homelands are so far apart. They've consummated their relationship but have no idea what happens next.

He finds Thorin staring out across the battlefield from the outlying walls of Erebor, keeping watch as the sun finds purchase on the mountainside and begins its slow ascent. The dark, dismal stretch of land is given some semblance of warmth, a watery pink catching against gold and stone, reflecting out as far as the ruins of Dale and into the camps of elves and men that still dot the landscape. There is something in Thorin’s face as he looks on them—regret, perhaps, or trepidation. It is likely some measure of both, Bilbo decides.

A chill lingers in the air, but Bilbo has become accustomed to such discomforts while traveling. There is time later to request necessities: a new overcoat, clean linens, a pocket handkerchief if the dwarves are feeling kindly. He has been too long without. But now, he joins Thorin at the wall.

“Good morning,” he says.

Thorin says, “You must be cold.”

“It’s a little brisk,” Bilbo allows, “but it’s certainly better than riding for hours on end atop a barrel in a river.”

“Certainly better than being in one,” says Thorin, with more good humor than he’s shown since midway through their journey. Bilbo is reminded of the king last night, how he laughed, plied with victory and joy. Is the madness of gold truly gone? He cannot tell. There is more color in Thorin’s face, but it could simply be the bite of the eastern wind. He does seem more sober in the light of day, more grim than heady from the terrible tidings of war.

In spite of his temper and ferocity in battle, Thorin has never relished in bloodshed in the time Bilbo has been at his side. It is this, more than anything, which persuades Bilbo the sickness is past. Thorin’s head is bent in mourning. He understands what he has lost.

Bilbo looks out across the battlefield. Its quiet alarms him, somehow—the dead laid out in rows at the base of Erebor more so. They are covered in canvas to dissuade birds and creatures from scavenging, but there are few animals on the mountainside even now, except for the thrush. Bilbo could hear one tapping against stone and calling in the dark as soon as he woke.

“How do dwarves honor their dead?” he asks, and is glad to hear his grief translate into voice less it be missed. These poor souls gave their lives to protect those Bilbo cared about and the homeland they sought so ardently. His heart is a soft touch, regardless, and easily moved.

Thorin looks aggrieved. “You’ll have your chance to witness firsthand,” he says. “For now, there are still bodies yet to be identified. My cousin Dáin will join me. You can see him there, walking the field from the camp.”

There is an indiscernible shadow pacing toward Erebor’s entrance. Bilbo nods.

“Most will be entombed deep under the mountain,” says Thorin. “All of my family, save for my father and grandfather, rest there. So many of our dead are now misplaced, but it will not be so anymore. They will be given gold. Jewels to light their passage. Song.”

“I wish the Eagles had come sooner.”

“Yes,” says Thorin, and only that.

They are silent for a time, watching Dáin approach and then disappear into the maw of Erebor’s gate below them. Thorin turns his attention to Bilbo, then, and Bilbo does not quite know what to do with it. “You have eaten?”

“I will,” says Bilbo.

“You are… well?” Thorin’s brow creases. 

Bilbo squints at him. “Reasonably so,” he says. “My head is a bit sore, if you must know, but Gandalf said it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“I didn’t mean your head,” Thorin says shortly.

He had ached fiercely upon waking, but he’s not about to divulge that to Thorin. It has been a long time. The ache is welcome. Bilbo folds his arms on top of the wall and peers over the side, letting the wind catch his hair and hide his face. “I am well, Thorin. I believe you have other concerns than a hobbit’s stomach.”

He had meant to distance himself, but Thorin touches his cheek. It is so surprising that Bilbo turns his head, unintentionally pressing into his touch.

Thorin studies him as if he doesn’t know what to say. He exhales and takes his hand back. “You refused my apology last night,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Will you allow me to make amends now?”

“Your fathers were ill,” Bilbo says. “Weren’t they? I remember the stories. Your grandfather was consumed by his greed for treasure and lost to madness.” He shakes his head. “You threatened to kill me.”

Thorin looks stricken. He says nothing.

Bilbo sighs and pats his shoulder. “Don’t think on it,” he advises. “Of all the dangers I’ve faced on our journey, you thundering on about tossing me over the wall was the least threatening.” 

_Perhaps the most painful_ , he thinks, _but certainly the least threatening._ In time, that sting would fade. In time, Bilbo would remember only Thorin’s more pleasant moments: his harp quivering in the firelight, the generosity of his laughter in good company, the damp kisses and scratch of his beard against Bilbo’s spine as he laid homage to him. Of course, thinking of such things is a pain in itself. It reminds Bilbo that soon enough, he will make his way home to the Shire again and these fragments will be all that are left to him to warm the night.

He will be in Bag-End with his books and maps. Thorin will remain, King Under the Mountain. There will perhaps be letters exchanged, until their significance to each other is lost to the years that follow. Bilbo will revitalize his garden and tell stories to the children in the green hills, and yes, as he grows old Thorin will become only another tale, bound in red and left on a shelf for lonely evenings.

The idea is raw and unpleasant. Bilbo closes his eyes and folds his palm over his forehead to ground himself.

“You _aren’t_ well,” says Thorin. “You’re pale and quiet.”

“So much has happened,” Bilbo says, strained. “I feel as though I’m trying to unravel too many strings from one knot. I’m afraid my thoughts are heavy.”

“As are mine,” Thorin tells him. “Go. There is food in the royal dining hall. Bombur cleared the room this morning and shined the table. Go eat and rest your head after. I’ll look in on you later.”

“More sleep is the last thing I need,” Bilbo protests. However, his stomach stirs and grumbles at the thought of a solid meal. He rubs his face. “But I will not say no to breakfast, if there is any.”

Thorin draws him away from the wall and back into the stronghold. His eyes are dark but compassionate, and he is more kingly than he has ever appeared—even the way his hand cups Bilbo’s elbow is respectful, given a grace he had not previously possessed. “Even burglars must rest,” he says. “Particularly burglars, as I’m given to believe they work in the absence of daylight.”

“I stole nothing last night.”

“Do not be so certain,” says Thorin, and then he leaves him in the long-stretching main hall, the newly lit torches eating away at the bleak shadow of so much stone.

 

None of the Company mention Thorin, nor Bilbo’s sudden return in their midst. They welcome him without question, pulling up an additional chair. Bofur grips his shoulder and shakes it, likely in companionship, though it mostly just smarts. Dwalin, who fetched him from the camps the night before, nods to Bilbo—only once, nothing more.

And yet for all of their casual indifference, Bilbo recognizes that something has changed. He had expected to feel odd, considering his journey began with dwarves invading his home and now ends with Bilbo invading theirs, however briefly. But the remoteness he’d expected to feel is of a different color; it is warmer, hushed, and gentle in its nature. When Ori fetches him a plate, he smiles shyly at Bilbo. When food is passed around the table, Bilbo receives the first pick.

He does not understand this change. It is foreign to him. Its roots are dwarven and therefore incomprehensible. Surely they cannot know what happened after Thorin sent for him? Is his heart so transparent in its workings?

Then Bifur starts to chew with his mouth open and Bilbo feels slightly better. Dwarves are, no matter, dwarves. If some line has been crossed—if they recognize something Bilbo doesn’t—it will be illuminated.

Or he will ask Gandalf, which is the wiser plan. Yes, he will ask Gandalf.

Breakfast is meager but better than their ilk had eaten on the road—the Bard and his men are willing to trade for goods, Bombur explains in pleasure, now that it seems their quarrel is nearing its end—and Bilbo picks pomegranate seeds out of his teeth while the Company finishes feasting. There is some boar’s meat and fresh eggs, along with several loaves of bread. The fruit had been a pleasant surprise, largely ignored by the dwarves and left to Bilbo’s curious sampling. There had been a small purple berry he rather liked, as well as the more familiar oranges and apples.

“Where are Kili and Fili?” he asks Balin, once the dwarf has eaten his fill and leans back in his chair, hands folded over his girth.

“Poor lads,” Balin says, smile dimming. “Have you not heard? A goblin stuck a spear through Fili and his brother has not left his side.”

Bilbo straightens in alarm. “A spear? Is he—”

“Oh, he’ll live,” says Dwalin, in between shoveling food into his mouth. “Stubborn one. Won’t shut his mouth to let himself rest.”

“Which brother are you referring to there?” mocks Nori, spearing a slice of boar with his dagger. There is a smear of grease across his cheek.

“I should look in on them,” Bilbo says, frowning. The brothers saw him into much trouble, but they also saw him out of much of it. He cannot imagine their mischief quelled by any weapon. “At the least, they will abide some company, I would imagine. They’re quite young. It must be difficult, being kept up in bed. I was a terrible patient when I was a tween, you couldn’t pay to keep me in one place!”

“Aye, Master Baggins. They would like that very much,” says Balin.

“How long will you be staying, then?” asks Ori, and there is an immediate shuffle as both Dori and Gloin jab into his sides. He yelps and ducks his head in between his shoulders like a turtle seeking its shell.

Bilbo swallows, but finds the blockage there impossible to remove. He does not answer.

It is Bofur who offers a kind smile and reprieve. “You’ll stay for the burials, won’t you, Master Baggins? I’ll teach you some of the songs. You have a good voice for our songs.”

“Yes,” Bilbo manages with some difficulty. “Yes, I would—be grateful. I should like to see them laid to rest.”

“I thought you would,” he says, and refills Bilbo’s cup.

He pictures Thorin walking amongst the dead, hoping to find faces he can put names to, strong family names with strong children left to remember them by. All at once, Bilbo wishes he were with him. It would be horrible to see so much lost, but it is a burden Bilbo is now assured he could carry. He is capable of so much he’d never believed himself to be before.

But it isn’t likely Bilbo would be welcome, not when Thorin has his cousin to accompany him. That is not Bilbo’s place. His place is at home, in Bag-End. He is a Baggins. He belongs in the Shire: freshly tilled earth and wild flowers spreading a carpet across the hills. The thrill that Bilbo felt seeing Rivendell, the fast beating of his heart when he outwitted Gollum—the fire last night, how he’d _burned_ with it ferociously enough to put a king in his place—does not belong to him, not to Bilbo Baggins as he’s lived all these years.

_And yet_ , he thinks, _it’s in you somewhere. Gandalf must have seen it, otherwise he would’ve never chosen me._

(There is a sliver, little more, that wants to hate Gandalf for choosing him. For Bilbo _is_ changed. He may come back from this adventure, but he is not the same, and the scar has cleaved across his entire heart. It still bleeds as he sits at this table. It still falls too low in his belly. It still _wants_ , unbearably, and if Thorin had suffered half of its longing, then Bilbo cannot blame him for succumbing to madness at all.)


	2. an honest conversation

In the late morning, the halls fill with dwarves who had followed Dáin from the distant mountains, eager to rebuild Erebor’s splendor. Bilbo passes crowds of them and pauses, at times, to observe their labor. Enormous velvet tapestries with gold-flecked tassels are taken down and draped over the walls of the guard’s watch to air out. The silver is pulled down from cupboards, where it had previously been abandoned and left to dull, and piled on top of tables. The dwarves work furiously at polishing, buffing, and cataloging its worth. Doors are flung open, rooms that haven’t seen daylight for years on end finally given a taste of the wind that sneaks deep, deep into the heart of the stronghold. The throne room and the main treasure hall are sealed shut by the Company, but there is plenty more to go around—riches and armories and the mine, the mine that gleams even far down in the dark, a haunting resonance calling to its workers.

Bilbo looks on all of this and he is glad. He’s glad he could help, in no small fashion, to take back this haven. The more he sees, the more he realizes it is not about the gold—but the mountain.

Every so often, he watches a dwarf tilt his head, eyes closing as if he’s hearing some stirring in the stone. Others press their palms to the wall and before Bilbo’s eyes, they appear _healed_ , given some inner strength that brightens their eyes and firms their jaws. It’s as if they are relearning the mountain, Bilbo ponders, or perhaps his own foolishness imbues simple homesickness with mysticism. It is no matter, he decides, and continues on his way.

He wonders what Thorin hears when he listens to the Lonely Mountain. Does he hear the echo of the past, the harkening of the future? Does he hear the thready and sweet ricochet of their lovemaking in the throne room from the night before? No, Bilbo instantly reprimands himself, because there is no cause for importance; it is only his vanity that hopes as much.

He is a silly hobbit. He should not torment himself so.

Bilbo knows from Balin that a smaller banquet hall has been set aside as a place of healing. He can find Fili and Kili there, then confirm that they’re as safe as they can be—it really does tear at Bilbo’s heart to know one brother is injured. There had been something kindly in them despite their practical jokes and exasperating youth, reminiscent of Thorin in a way, though their kindliness came more naturally and without expectation. In the last leg of their journey, they often walked on either side of Bilbo, trading barbs around his shoulders and laughing at each other’s faces. _Our burglar may sneak away if we aren’t watchful_ , Fili often said.

_Do not encourage him_ , said Kili. _Master Baggins has no need to escape_ us _, after all._

In truth, their companionship had made Bilbo feel younger, as well. He’s going to miss them. The way Kili will eat an entire apple, even its core and seeds and the woody stem—and how proud Fili is of his swords, caring for them in the glow of firelight well past when the others have curled in their bedrolls. He can’t imagine either of them bedridden. His stomach falls like lead, settling heavy when he does. A spear—a spear could have so easily taken any of them, could have taken Thorin, perhaps almost did. And where had Bilbo been?

_Knocked senseless in a pile of mud_ , he thinks. Certainly, a hobbit may often find himself in such a predicament, though under better circumstances, but Bilbo does wish he had chosen a more apt time to be… well, himself.

It cannot always be like the spiders. It’s remarkable Bilbo had been any use at all on this journey—a great deal more useful than he’d ever imagined, in fact. This reminder helps a little, though its comfort is wan.

The banquet hall is teeming with fallen soldiers when Bilbo finds it: men laid out on tapestries and furs sacrificed to their honor, all buzzing in discontent from having to remain still. The scent of blood and a foul odor linger despite the tall ceiling, and Bilbo covers his mouth as he carefully navigates the rows. It is alarming that the healers are as grime-streaked and dirtied as those being healed, but then, Bilbo has rarely seen a dwarf who recoils at a bit of earth. A few bored dwarves take a swipe at his feet as he passes, but Bilbo dodges them.

Fili is laid out close to the window, given an esteemed position in a sunspot. Bilbo nearly cries out when he sees him—alive, even smiling, his golden braids tangled and body bound around the middle, hand resting across his heart as if to be sure of its continued maintenance. At Bilbo’s hurried footsteps (not at all sneaky and silent, not even a bit), both he and Kili look up.

It is Kili who brightens the most to see him, however, seated at his brother’s side. “Master Baggins!” he calls. “So you’ve come to look after poor Fili. He’s in a sorry state, riddled with holes.”

Bilbo huffs as he approaches them, then sinks down on Fili’s other side. “Do you have more than the one?”

“The one is so big, it counts for more holes,” says Fili.

“I’ve kept the spear,” Kili says proudly, holding up the splintered end and a still-bloodied point. The blood has dried and crusted in a ring around the wood.

Bilbo frowns at him. “I shouldn’t think you’d want the reminder.”

Fili grunts, adjusting his weight. “Any reminder I’m alive is a fine one to me.”

“I pulled it out of him myself,” says Kili. He does not appear nearly so proud when he says this, however, and Bilbo gives him a sympathetic pat. There is a sort of frenzied vigilance in Kili’s face, set back behind the forced cheer—a strain around his dark eyes that only emphasizes his pallor, as if his skin has become stiff and too tight. He clutches the spear’s end, folding it back into his lap.

Fili knocks his knuckles against his brother’s knee, albeit gently. “Even when I told you not to.”

There is silence a while. It is not an awful silence, but Bilbo feels uncomfortable when it begins to drag nevertheless. “I’m very glad to see you well,” he finally says. “Or—if not well, mending.”

“We’re glad to see you well,” says Fili, and he seems to mean it. “Has our uncle eaten crow, then?”

Kili cheers at this and looks at Bilbo expectantly.

“ _Eaten crow_ ,” Bilbo sighs, “honestly. If you mean has he apologized for—our misunderstanding with the Arkenstone,” it is close enough to the truth, “then yes and no. Yes, he has tried, and no, I have not let him.”

Fili and Kili look at each other. “Master Baggins hasn’t let him yet,” Fili echoes. He taps his fingers against his chest and sucks in air tightly, raising an eyebrow. It means something, but Bilbo isn’t sure what.

“Are you _lording it over_ our uncle?” demands Kili, but he sounds terribly pleased.

“No!” Bilbo protests. He feels flustered, out of his depth. “Goodness, no. It’s none of your business, but I don’t think he ought to apologize. Not yet. Let his regret diminish, then perhaps we will have an honest conversation about what we’ve done to each other. That’s all.”

It’s Fili who breaks the following silence now, studying Bilbo with an unreadable gaze. “I wonder if you’ve considered how long it may take for our uncle to give up on festering regrets. The last burned for the entire length of my life, and Kili’s.”

The sun is warming, prickling Bilbo’s skin and beginning a slow burn beneath his dress shirt. He has no answer for Fili—indeed, he knows it is possible that Thorin won’t be ready to discuss, may never be ready for the conversations Bilbo wants to have with him. Bilbo will need to leave for the Shire and the words will linger unsaid. But he has hope. If there is room enough for change in Thorin Oakenshield to grant a traitorous hobbit clemency, there may be room enough to realize they are both stubborn fools who made poor decisions. There is a little time, yet.

He touches Fili’s shoulder, then his forehead. “As I’ve said, it’s not a concern for dwarves riddled with holes,” he says, with more fondness than he means to.

How strange they are, Bilbo thinks—for it’s Kili who smiles at him in response, who acts as if he’s touched them both.

They speak for some time of how the restoration of Erebor is coming along and when Fili will be well enough to join the others. As the sun approaches its zenith, Bilbo says his farewells and leaves them to their own conversation. He checks on them again at the door. Fili’s eyes are closed, but he speaks with obvious care—the words do not travel to Bilbo’s ears.

Beside him, Kili listens while gazing through the open window, his dark hair a stark imprint against the blue sky. He still fingers the spear’s broken end, picking at the splinters until they break under his nails.

 

Thorin, though he said he would, does not look in on Bilbo later in the day. He does not make a reappearance at all.

It’s not disappointing. Bilbo is glad of the time to think, to plan and cautiously turn over his intentions until he’s fully aware of them. The room that’s been given to him is sparse but finer than anything he’s had since Rivendell. There is a hearth still blanketed in old ash. He finds a broken chair in the hall and brings it inside the room for firewood, which Bilbo Baggins of the Shire would have balked at—so impolite, so wasteful, someone’s beloved _furniture_ —but other dwarves are doing much the same. Dwarves prefer stone and gem and metal alloy; wood, they may burn.

The bed is sunken in the middle, but the furs are warm and the canopy beautiful: a patched netting of metal links and sapphires. This must have been a very important room, once. The wardrobe in the corner is made of oak and inlaid with thin sheets of pearl, depicting the oddly geometric patterns Bilbo is beginning to associate with the dwarven people. He blows the thick coating of dust away and tries to wipe down every surface, until the bedroom gleams again, until it appears less of a tomb.

He curls in the bed and closes his eyes. Now that the quest is over, Bilbo doesn’t feel as though he belongs here. At the same time, he can’t imagine leaving until all are laid to rest: the dead, his love. His love of Thorin Oakenshield seems more alive than ever before, though, clawing its way through bone and blood clot, strangling in Bilbo’s throat. If Dwalin had not brought him back to Erebor—if Thorin hadn’t tried to apologize, if Bilbo hadn’t pushed and shouted and then kissed him, kissed him in a way that could not be mistaken for anything but a volley of fire unto a kingdom—perhaps he wouldn’t be so shaken. He has no one to blame but himself. Bilbo _had_ kissed him. Had wanted, burned for him. He’d shoved Thorin in his throne and clambered up on him, demanding recompense in hands on his skin, in Thorin’s teeth and tongue and own wanting.

Thorin may have let Bilbo go without bringing them to this point. But Bilbo had looked on the mad king of Erebor and taken his share of the treasure, knowing very well it would sour in him and grow.

It should not be possible to hurt down to marrow and thin membrane. But Bilbo does hurt, every inch of him, when he thinks about leaving Thorin. They are ill-suited, temperamental, and set in their ways. This is not untrue. They are also drawn to each other, in the way that Bilbo searches for him in every face and feels calm when at last in his presence.

“But you can’t stay,” he whispers, looking up at the canopy. “You can’t. Even if you did, there’s nothing for you here, old boy.”

In the hall, a dwarf shouts a warning and something shatters on the floor. “Take care!” someone cries. “There is likely only one of those!”

 

Under a warm gloaming, Thorin uncovers the last of the dead and searches the face for a recognizable feature. But it is difficult; each face has begun to blur into the next, a parade of large noses, punctured earlobes, scars and bruises and bluing lips. He closes his eyes briefly. A low thrum of pain in the back of his head continues to gain ground, creeping up behind his eyelids in blossoms of red in the black.

“I know this one,” says Dáin. “Poor lad. His mother will be cross with us. Nearly beat me ‘cross my face with a spoon for letting him come.”

“She would be right to feel such a way,” Thorin says. He recovers the corpse and opens his eyes again to the sky and its rich fall of purple. The night will not be cold, the first such night in their time at the Lonely Mountain. He cannot help but hope it is a good omen at last.

Dáin claps his shoulder. “You look heavy, cousin. Save your grief for the tombs. It will be simpler to lose it in the dark.”

Thorin does not say that his grief seems beyond reckoning, that it crawls into every orifice of his being, hatches new laments inside the weakest places of his body. He only nods and adjusts his sword against his hip.

He searches the walls again, craning his neck up.

Dáin mimics him. “Who are you always looking for?” he asks. “One of your sister-sons?”

“No,” says Thorin. “It’s no one.”

“Then the one you stood with this morning. Out on the wall.” Dáin pulls off one of his gauntlets, clenching and unclenching his hand. He doesn’t look at Thorin, though he speaks gravely. “I could not see very far when I crossed the field, but your bearing is unmistakable.”

Thorin says, “It is no one.”

Dáin does not respond. He pulls off his other gauntlet and hooks them both beneath his arm, squeezed next to his ribs. He begins to walk back to the entrance of Erebor and Thorin follows him, their steps uneven, one tread heavy in iron and the other light of foot.

“Have you heard her yet?” asks Dáin, as they pass beneath the great fall of shadow from the archway.

Thorin inclines his head.

Dáin laughs at him. “She _sings_ , Thorin. Our hallowed halls welcome us most fervently.” He looks Thorin once over, head to toe. “And more, besides. What else did you offer besides blood?”

“Nothing more,” Thorin says, but he feels abruptly sick. Pressing his hand over his brow, he wanders past his cousin toward where his old bedroom—or what is left of it—remains. He does not listen for the hum of stone, ages old, and what it might tell him. He believes he may not like what he hears. He may hear nothing at all; he had been younger when Erebor was taken, and the mine had never spoken to him the way it did his father and grandfather.

Still, the torches cast light into what had been a sepulcher. The halls are filled with boisterous voices and the noises of honest work. He is home, and perhaps he does hear something caught in between his breaths, something like joy, a _hard_ joy that beats as drums do and belongs to the living.

(He hesitates at the door to Bilbo’s room, palm resting against wood. He can hear nothing. He moves on.)


End file.
